Post-occupancy evaluation in the built environment: validating the quality of fabric, the impact of retrofit works, and anticipating car crashes, with Tom Robins and Leigh Fairbrother (Switchee)

We're back! And we’re talking about the value of post-occupancy evaluation (POE) with Tom Robins and Leigh Fairbrother of Switchee.

Their business is POE for landlords that’s intended to improve the quality of life for the residents that they rely on. Capturing sensor data, analysing it, and synthesising that into something their clients can use.

Essentially, this means validating the quality of fabric, the impact of retrofit works, and anticipating car crashes—metaphorical ones.

We get a really helpful explanation of Awaab’s Law around 25–30 minutes in, too. (Thank you Leigh.)

Notes from the show

• Tom Robins on LinkedIn
• Leigh Fairbrother on LinkedIn 
• The Switchee website (sign up in the footer)
• Switchee on LinkedIn
• PH+ coverage of that early work in Thamesmead (the Clockwork Orange estate) 

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

• Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
• Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
• Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
• Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
• Join ACAN
• Join the AECB 
• Join the IGBC
• Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

What is Zero Ambitions Podcast?

Zero Ambitions is a consultancy and weekly podcast about sustainability and the built environment.

We find interesting and experienced guests who know what they're talking about, usually to discuss how we navigate the complexity of decarbonisation and sustainability in the built environment and its many related sectors.

Hosted by Jeff Colley and Dan Hyde, publishers of Passive House Plus magazine (UK and Ireland), the podcast has now grow into a consultancy, Zero Ambitions Partners.

The consultancy specialises in defensible sustainability communications. We create the strategy that makes built environment leaders stand out, enabling them to occupy positions that are distinct and defensible.

As with the podcast itself, we help organisations to communicate about what they do and the value that they offer. Usually, this means strategies to change a conversation from price to value and how to futureproof an offer with evidence that makes its claims watertight.

If you're a leader, or want to become one, we help you to make sense of where you stand in your sector, how to improve your positioning, how to communicate this to the market you operate in, and how to highlight the difference between you and your peer group.

If you can engage your value chain by speaking about what matters to them, you can educate your key stakeholders and turn them into evangelists for your cause.

Book a ‘ZAP Defensibility Audit’, but brace yourself
- Uncover value and opportunities that you may 
not have recognised
- Find out if your sustainability claims are defensible
- Find out if your claims are too meek
- Change the conversation from price to value